While our enjoyment of music depends primarily on our sense of hearing, it is possible to expand the range of sensations experienced when listening to a band or other source of music to include the visual realm and thereby greatly enhance the listener's enjoyment. Various techniques are often employed to enhance the lighting of a stage on which musical entertainment is provided, ranging from colored stage lighting that is changed to suit the mood of the music currently being played, to laser or other complex light shows that are arranged to complement entertainment being experienced by the audience.
Light shows in which various colored lights are controlled in response to the amplitude and frequency of the music being played have been available for a number of years. Some prior art devices that control light sources used in lighting shows are designed to respond to a music signal before the signal is amplified to drive loudspeakers, while others are designed to be driven by the amplified signal that is applied to the speakers. Bandpass filters in these devices can provide a control signal that is used to energize a specific color of light associated with a range of frequencies in the input music signal, and these devices can control the intensity of the light source as a function of the amplitude of the music signal within the range of frequencies associated with the light source. For example, higher frequencies in a music signal might control the intensity of yellow lights, while mid-range frequencies control red lights, and bass frequencies control blue or green lights. In virtually all of these prior art controllers, the sound signal is sampled through bandpass filters, either before or after it is amplified by a power amplifier, to derive the control signals that control the lights of various colors. These types of lighting displays thus tend to be centrally disposed and controlled by a single controller. If used with a group of live musicians (and not to create lighting effects for previously recorded music), the light show provided by such prior art systems is normally not associated with just a single instrument or provided for each of a plurality of instruments being played.
A more interesting lighting enhancement could be provided by enabling a specific instrument to include lights that provide a light show in response to that instrument being played. If light shows can thus be provided for each of a plurality of instruments, then each instrument can have and control its own lighting effects. Alternatively, it might be desirable for one or more instruments in a group to directly control lighting effects that are separate from the instruments. The lighting effects might be based upon the actual vibrations of the instruments when played, instead of the processed sound signals that will be used to drive loudspeakers or monitors. This level of versatility has not been provided in connection with currently available light show systems that respond to electrical sound signals that are used to drive loudspeakers. It would thus be desirable to enable an instrument to directly control a lighting effect included with the instrument or alternatively, to control a more remote light source in response to the vibrations produced by the instrument as it is played.
Another function that has not been realized in lighting systems responsive to electrical sound signals used to drive loudspeakers is to provide an indication of the quality of play by a musician who is playing an instrument. For example, it would be desirable to determine the timing accuracy of a drummer striking a drum relative to the beat indicated on a musical score. Providing an immediate visual feedback indicative of the performance would be useful to enable the musician to improve during practice. In addition, the vibration of an instrument being played can provide a recordable signal that can later be compared to an optimal performance to enable an instructor to evaluate the performance of a student musician. Thus, it would be desirable to employ a signal that is usable to control a light show, for these additional purposes. Again, the currently available lighting systems do not provide any comparable functionality.
A signal produced in response to the vibration of an instrument might be conveyed either via a wire or wirelessly, to a controller that is used for the above-noted functions or other such functionality. By enabling vibration sensors associated with each of a plurality of instruments to convey a corresponding signal to a controller, and control signals produced by the controller to be securely conveyed to one or more sets of light sources, a variety of different lighting effects might be produced in response to the instruments. For wireless communications, it would be important to secure the signals and avoid interference between the signals for each of the instruments in a band. Again, these issues do not appear to be addressed by conventional lighting systems.